Expenses from store.lds.org and Staples

[drepouille]

It looks like our paper consumption will increase, and we will have to buy more ink pens.

[jdlessley]

I can understand the requirement for the bishop/branch president/stake president signing IROPs authorizing expenses. However, phone charges show in the expenses section of the stake's UFS and are also reimbursed in the same statement, thus in reality aren't expenses to the stake.

I agree with that thought. An auditor should be familiar with the Church's handling of phone expenses. Of course the stake president's signature on the financial statement fulfills the approval process anyway.

The There are also times where an IROP has a $0.0 balance when one or more No Charge items are ordered from the Distribution Center. Does the unit leader need to sign showing he authorized these non-expenses?

No. A zero balance on a statement is not an expense. No funds have been expended.

[russellhltn]

The There are also times where an IROP has a $0.0 balance when one or more No Charge items are ordered from the Distribution Center. Does the unit leader need to sign showing he authorized these non-expenses?

No. A zero balance on a statement is not an expense. No funds have been expended.

I don't do finance side, so I'm not up on what the $0 IROPs are. Aren't they for no-charge items from the store?

While at $0 it's not an expense to the local unit, it is an expense to the church. It's not unreasonable to think that the church still wants the unit leader to keep an eye on things that are ordered even if it doesn't affect the local unit funds.

[lajackson]

It looks like our paper consumption will increase, and we will have to buy more ink pens.

I think we are going to opt for the stake president to sign the monthly financial report, which he already does.

[aebrown]

I don't do finance side, so I'm not up on what the $0 IROPs are. Aren't they for no-charge items from the store?

More broadly, from Distribution Services and possibly from other sources. A variety of items arrive this way; some are a result of a request from the ward/stake, but many come unsolicited. The Church wants each ward or stake to have something, so it sends them out and charges the units $0.

While at $0 it's not an expense to the local unit, it is an expense to the church. It's not unreasonable to think that the church still wants the unit leader to keep an eye on things that are ordered even if it doesn't affect the local unit funds.

I think it is unreasonable to require a signature, and as I read the audit instructions, and auditor has no business asking about them, since they are not counted as expenses.

These $0 IROPs don't show up at all in the transactional part of MLS -- they are only in the Financial Statements area. Furthermore, since there are no transactions involved, nothing shows up in the Unit Financial Statement. Thus, there is no way for a financial clerk or an auditor to track these items and cross-check them as is normally done for transactions.

But there's a big difference between a $0 IROP and an IROP that happens to be in a category that is automatically reimbursed. I see no need to worry about the $0 IROPs, but a reimbursed IROP is still an expenditure of money and has associated transactions. Thus it must be approved by the unit leader. As has been noted earlier, the unit leader's signature on the financial statement (with a verbal affirmation to the auditor) is sufficient approval for IROPs.

[milleju]

There are two ways the presiding officer may approve the expense that will be acceptable to the auditor (if the auditor follows his instructions).

The presiding officer may sign the IROP to indicate his approval. Or the presiding officer may sign the monthly financial statement AND give his verbal assurance to the auditor that he has reviewed and approved the expense.

If the expense is documented in either of these ways, the audit item will be marked Yes and everything will be fine.

Correct. What we have done in our ward is to print and attach all IROPs for each month to the monthly financial statement and have asked to Bishop to review them as part of his review of the financial statements. This way he has the detail he needs for each IROP, he can easily attest to his review satisfying the audit, and is still only one signature.

Great topic. My Bishop has recently asked if there is any way to approve these orders BEFORE they are placed. Have any wards attempted this and have had success? I did see on the Staples site an option for requiring an approval before ordering; can this be used? I doubt there is a similar option for ordering church supplies through lds.org.

[Gary_Miller]

Great topic. My Bishop has recently asked if there is any way to approve these orders BEFORE they are placed. Have any wards attempted this and have had success? I did see on the Staples site an option for requiring an approval before ordering; can this be used? I doubt there is a similar option for ordering church supplies through lds.org.

The best way is to only have one person in the ward allowed to make orders, in my ward it was the finance clerk. That person can run the order past the Bishop before placing an order.

However, I see no need for this type of approval, unless the Bishop is approving all expenses before the organizational president spends the funds on any activity. Since most of the orders come from the various ward organization.

[drepouille]

True confessions time. Last year, one of the wards in my stake ran out of toner. Their ward clerk was not available at the time, so I gave them the spare toner from the stake clerk's office, then I logged in to the Staples EWay site using that ward's unit number, and ordered new toner. I asked them to give that new toner to the stake when it was delivered.
I was surprised that I was able to login to their Staples account.

[jdlessley]

... I logged in to the Staples EWay site using that ward's unit number, and ordered new toner.

Ordering from Staples Eway was changed in October. I don't know if it is any more secure than it was previously but Staples claims it is. Now you must put in a customer ID (sent by e-mail to the ward clerk), user ID (same as it was previously), and a password. The password can be changed at any time after the first log on. The Church provided the initial password. So if you know the customer ID and the unit has not changed the password then you can log on to their account. But the ability to change the password does make it more difficult to use another unit's account.

[drepouille]

Yes, I like the way Clerk Resources displays my Customer ID, user ID, and default password each time I click on the Order Office Supplies link.
"It is highly recommended that you do not change the default password, since other approved users in your unit will also sign in with it."
Also, I would prefer to ship office supplies to my (clerk) home address, but I understand why the Church and Staples prefer to ship to the unit leader's home address.